Teachers pay dispute

[The Big Shrek]

Is nursing a profession Psyber?

I take your point though, the government does not like groups thinking they are better at running themselves than the government.

Rann is having a fair go at debasing the legal profession too, starting with the courts.

Lucky for us that if there is a group who don't like giving up power more than politicians, it's lawyers!

[Pag]

Insterad of striking, I wouldn't mind seeing AEU members only doing the 38 hours a week that full-time work entails. I'd bet the Government would love seeing blank report cards at the end of the year, horribly planned and run lessons, and no tests or assignments marked. Could probably scrap lunch and recess duty under that scheme as well.

Well, that's what our school is doing at the moment - we've chosen not to go on strike but focus on the core business of learning and teaching, while putting on hold the extra-curricular stuff which we truly do heaps of at a school like mine (eg. camps, performances, sports, open nights etc).

It's an interesting scenario - the naive idea was that not striking would limit the impact on the learning of the kids and hopefully reinforce the idea to parents that our core business is teaching their children and that all the extra stuff we do unpaid is icing on the cake, done out of the goodness of our collective heart. The idea is that we do our 38 hours and that's it (the reality of course is not much has changed re my workload - I still do my planning, assessment, training after school).

It got a bit of a (negative) run on Ch 7 and 5AA, thanks largely to a certain newsreader whose child attends the school.
The reaction, I've got to say, has been mostly negative despite some very vocal minority support. It has been seen as quite mean-spirited to deprive kids of their camps especially. But the amount of parents who think a teacher babysitting their kids on a 3 night camp is their God-given right is gob-smacking. (This is the first year I think I've not taken a class on camp BTW and I could count on one hand how many times I've actually been thanked). And, no, you never ever get paid to go on camp - tell me another profession where that would be allowed to happen??

There is actually one agitator who because his kid has chosen to play interstate volleyball all of the final week of school and will thus miss Graduation (another out-of-hours 'expectation' which incidentally staff voted to retain despite the dispute), is furious that teachers will not move the ceremony to the weekend instead. Sorry mate, perhaps in the past but not now... There is still this perception in the community that teachers begin at 9 and knock off at 3 - an incredibly insulting and ignorant view that I'm quite sick to death of to be honest. Unfortunately, despite its intentions, I don't think our school's actions have remedied this situation.

As for things that give you the sh1ts, I'm sick and tired of letters to the editor saying teachers need to join the 'real world', whatever that is, before lumping in their claims with the lot of the automotive industry or child care workers etc as in today's paper (teaching is a University qualified profession and it's not unreasonable to suggest that rates of pay reflect this). I dare say today's modern classroom is a lot more 'real' than when many people went to school - an absolute multi-cultural, socio-economic melting pot where real issues are investigated, technology explored, skills honed etc. A lot more 'real' than being terminally embedded in the same identikit cubicle with a window that doesn't open.

I'm all for performance based pay rates though quite how you do it I'm not sure. There was a guy from the NY Ed system on the 7.30 Report the other night who had some very confronting but powerful possible solutions, but I doubt anyone here would be brave enough to implement them here. BTW teachers DO go through annual performance management / review meetings with their line managers, like Tassie suggests, but if I'm being totally honest, this could afford to be a whole lot more rigorous.

Well said ZZ.

I'd love to see Mike Rann, Jane Lomax-Smith or Paul Caica handle a class of 30 students at a Category 1 school for a week, making sure they do everything required of a teacher. Then try and tell us we don't deserve our pay for being professionals, as that's what we are, and compared to other professions that require a university degree (lawyers, doctors, physios etc), teachers are given SFA.

Shrek, I believe being a registered nurse is now a profession, as a university degree is required. Someone correct me if I'm wrong though.

[Psyber]

Is nursing a profession Psyber?
I take your point though, the government does not like groups thinking they are better at running themselves than the government.
Rann is having a fair go at debasing the legal profession too, starting with the courts.
Lucky for us that if there is a group who don't like giving up power more than politicians, it's lawyers!

Nursing used to be regarded as a profession, particularly when the training was in hospitals and they were not being churned through theoretical courses with little practical experience.
A nurse trained at a world standard hospital as the RAH and ACH then were could get a job anywhere in the world.
It was the first profession to be debased by government policy into "health workers".

My step-daughter was one of the first groups to go through the "College of Advanced Education" scheme, before thay became pseudo Unis, and looking back says she was ill-prepared for practical work.
Of course, that helps tie people to further training in the local public hospital set up trying to get places doing further certificates if they want to achieve a level that will be recognised Internationally.
She short cut that by going off to London to do an Intensive Care Certificate at Harefield Hospital, which gave her easy access to top private and public employers around the world.

I guess that sort of portability, and independence of an employer, is in part what makes a profession, not just a Uni degree.
People having the option to just up and go if terms and conditions are not up to scratch is what administrators don't want professionals to keep.
Getting rid of private schools and private health care would be one way of achieving that - then governments would dictate cost and quality for all.
Then the "consumer" would not have any more choice than the "worker", not being able to just go somewhere else!

[The Big Shrek]

Traditionally a profession required:

its own set of ethics, monitored by the profession;

a theoretical body of knowledge capable of being transfered;

professional authority, so what the professional says goes. So you can't say to the doctor, 'your wrong give me some drugs for my cold' but yo can say to the guy at the hardware shop 'give me some hay to make my house'.

I think there were a couple of other requirements, can't really remember though. There is some debate about what is required.

[Mic]

Insterad of striking, I wouldn't mind seeing AEU members only doing the 38 hours a week that full-time work entails. I'd bet the Government would love seeing blank report cards at the end of the year, horribly planned and run lessons, and no tests or assignments marked. Could probably scrap lunch and recess duty under that scheme as well.

Well, that's what our school is doing at the moment - we've chosen not to go on strike but focus on the core business of learning and teaching, while putting on hold the extra-curricular stuff which we truly do heaps of at a school like mine (eg. camps, performances, sports, open nights etc).

It's an interesting scenario - the naive idea was that not striking would limit the impact on the learning of the kids and hopefully reinforce the idea to parents that our core business is teaching their children and that all the extra stuff we do unpaid is icing on the cake, done out of the goodness of our collective heart. The idea is that we do our 38 hours and that's it (the reality of course is not much has changed re my workload - I still do my planning, assessment, training after school).

It got a bit of a (negative) run on Ch 7 and 5AA, thanks largely to a certain newsreader whose child attends the school.
The reaction, I've got to say, has been mostly negative despite some very vocal minority support. It has been seen as quite mean-spirited to deprive kids of their camps especially. But the amount of parents who think a teacher babysitting their kids on a 3 night camp is their God-given right is gob-smacking. (This is the first year I think I've not taken a class on camp BTW and I could count on one hand how many times I've actually been thanked). And, no, you never ever get paid to go on camp - tell me another profession where that would be allowed to happen??

There is actually one agitator who because his kid has chosen to play interstate volleyball all of the final week of school and will thus miss Graduation (another out-of-hours 'expectation' which incidentally staff voted to retain despite the dispute), is furious that teachers will not move the ceremony to the weekend instead. Sorry mate, perhaps in the past but not now... There is still this perception in the community that teachers begin at 9 and knock off at 3 - an incredibly insulting and ignorant view that I'm quite sick to death of to be honest. Unfortunately, despite its intentions, I don't think our school's actions have remedied this situation.

As for things that give you the sh1ts, I'm sick and tired of letters to the editor saying teachers need to join the 'real world', whatever that is, before lumping in their claims with the lot of the automotive industry or child care workers etc as in today's paper (teaching is a University qualified profession and it's not unreasonable to suggest that rates of pay reflect this). I dare say today's modern classroom is a lot more 'real' than when many people went to school - an absolute multi-cultural, socio-economic melting pot where real issues are investigated, technology explored, skills honed etc. A lot more 'real' than being terminally embedded in the same identikit cubicle with a window that doesn't open.

I'm all for performance based pay rates though quite how you do it I'm not sure. There was a guy from the NY Ed system on the 7.30 Report the other night who had some very confronting but powerful possible solutions, but I doubt anyone here would be brave enough to implement them here. BTW teachers DO go through annual performance management / review meetings with their line managers, like Tassie suggests, but if I'm being totally honest, this could afford to be a whole lot more rigorous.

The work-to-rule thing is useless, no teacher follows it because no teacher is able to run a class by only working `from 8 to 4`. Lots of schools aren`t cancelling after hours events due to all the work that has been put into it by students or because the school will lose money from it (ie, deposits for camps).

In Australia, teachers have received little respect for what they do for quite a while now.

I`m not sure we should be basing any part of our teaching system on the US, although John Howard and now Kevin Rudd would disagree with me.

[Aerie]

Insterad of striking, I wouldn't mind seeing AEU members only doing the 38 hours a week that full-time work entails. I'd bet the Government would love seeing blank report cards at the end of the year, horribly planned and run lessons, and no tests or assignments marked. Could probably scrap lunch and recess duty under that scheme as well.

Good idea. 38 hours, and 4 weeks annual leave...

[Mic]

Insterad of striking, I wouldn't mind seeing AEU members only doing the 38 hours a week that full-time work entails. I'd bet the Government would love seeing blank report cards at the end of the year, horribly planned and run lessons, and no tests or assignments marked. Could probably scrap lunch and recess duty under that scheme as well.

Good idea. 38 hours, and 4 weeks annual leave...

Around parent interview time and report writing time I would do about 38 hours in 3 days. So it`s a very good idea, that gives me Thursday, Friday and the weekend off...

[hearts on fire]

The teachers have snagged another strike tomorrow, how many has this been for the year? 4 or 5? (not that I'm complaining)

[Dirko]

The teachers have snagged another strike tomorrow, how many has this been for the year? 4 or 5? (not that I'm complaining)

Nope..the strike is OFF ! The IRC ordered the teachers to work...

Here's the link CLICK HERE

Off to school you go. I heard on the news and advised my sister and she's dirty, as she has rescheduled her whole day including baby sitting duties
etc with my Mum. She thinks she'll just stick to the plan and not send her in. If they mark her as away she'll go troppo !

[hearts on fire]

The teachers have snagged another strike tomorrow, how many has this been for the year? 4 or 5? (not that I'm complaining)

Nope..the strike is OFF ! The IRC ordered the teachers to work...

Here's the link CLICK HERE

Off to school you go. I heard on the news and advised my sister and she's dirty, as she has rescheduled her whole day including baby sitting duties
etc with my Mum. She thinks she'll just stick to the plan and not send her in. If they mark her as away she'll go troppo !

okay doesn't matter, we still have the day off i think. The school sent us all a note home stating that there wasn't enough staff to take care of all the kids.

it's to late to get everyone to school, alot of schools have already called it off, so the teachers have still got their way, empty class rooms.

[Thiele]

The teachers have snagged another strike tomorrow, how many has this been for the year? 4 or 5? (not that I'm complaining)

Nope..the strike is OFF ! The IRC ordered the teachers to work...

Here's the link CLICK HERE

Off to school you go. I heard on the news and advised my sister and she's dirty, as she has rescheduled her whole day including baby sitting duties
etc with my Mum. She thinks she'll just stick to the plan and not send her in. If they mark her as away she'll go troppo !

okay doesn't matter, we still have the day off i think. The school sent us all a note home stating that there wasn't enough staff to take care of all the kids.

it's to late to get everyone to school, alot of schools have already called it off, so the teachers have still got their way, empty class rooms.

better call your school in the Morning Hof

[hearts on fire]

Im not going to go tomorrow, none on my mates are going and i doubt anyone else will too.

It is also good to have a day off every now and then, even though we finish on Wednesday!

[Squawk]

I could write so so much about this, but I;ll start off with brevity:

1. Just because you go to Uni doesn't entitle every graduate to be paid the same.
2. Teachers should not be negotiating budget allocations - that is not the domain of enterprise bargaining. It's like a Holden plant demanding that Head Office commit a minimum funding allocation to their particular business. In any case, a commitment has been given that no school will receive less than what they get.
3. 12 weeks of holidays and out of hours activities. Other's get 4 weeks of holiday and out of hours work demands too. For example, most public servants have a clause that says "reasonable overtime/additional hours must be worked as required".
4. Police, Firefighters, Ambulance Staff, Doctors, Teachers and Nurses have had significant pay rises when compared to other professions. Go and ask other public servants about what pay rises they have got since 2001 or so?
5. As a result of (4) the state has a significant wages bill that leaves little buffer to absorb the effect of the "GFC". Teachers are demanding 18% for 3 years with 7% up front, plus a funding model that meets their satisfaction. What they aren't prepared to say is - who should miss out on pay rises or agency funding to satisfy their claim?
6. A teacher on $75k a year is paid the same as a level 3 lawyer at the DPP. They do Jury trials for major indictable (criminal) offences. There are 5 levels of lawyer before they peak prior to the management level. They have to go through annual performance reviews. Their performances are accounted in the media. They get harrassed in the street and at home and other places by the criminal underworld in nasty ways. They are responsible for making decisions that affect peoples lives - victims and perpetrators - in ways that can never be changed. Wrong decision - big problems. Bad day at work for a teacher? Unlikely in most cases to have a lifelong effect on one or more people. So make your choice - teacher for $75K or prosecutor for $75K?

*from the son of TWO career teachers, now retired.

[Adelaide Hawk]

I'm just amazed by teachers who complain they have to look after a class of 30 kids as part of the argument.

I mean, isn't that their job? Isn't that what they get paid for? What did they expect was going to happen? It's like a dentist complaining he has to put his hand inside other peoples' mouths.

I have a brother and sister who are teachers and I get sick of hearing them complain. Don't like the job? Then find something else to do.

[mick]

Traditionally a profession required:

its own set of ethics, monitored by the profession;

a theoretical body of knowledge capable of being transfered;

professional authority, so what the professional says goes. So you can't say to the doctor, 'your wrong give me some drugs for my cold' but yo can say to the guy at the hardware shop 'give me some hay to make my house'.

I think there were a couple of other requirements, can't really remember though. There is some debate about what is required.

I thought that the potential to be sued for making a stuff up is also a criterion. Hence most professionals have indemity insurance. Give the pay rise, but let parents sue for unsatisfactory performance.

[zipzap]

6. A teacher on $75k a year

Wow, I'd like to meet this teacher. Must be in the private system. Or WA perhaps.

To those like Squawk who love getting stuck into teachers at any given opportunity, who like to compare 'our holidays' with 'their holidays', teachers having it easy according to other more noble professions, my job hasn't had a pay rise so why should you lazy layabouts blah blah etc etc (just keep wheeling out the cliches...) ... please remember what this dispute is really about.

SA teachers are the worst paid in the country, by a long shot. Whether or not the cost of living here is less is irrelevant - the fact is it's becoming increasingly difficult to attract the better, brighter candidates (and push out the tired baby boomers but that's another story) as evidenced by the fact that the TER for teaching has dropped markedly in recent years.

Bottom line is (and this is the same argument given by the recently successful and publicly supported doctors' dispute) if our base line salary in SA is not competitive, we run the risk of having a poorer education system. Surely any parent capable of rational though sees that and wants the very best for their kids. It's not rocket science, and I know some won't believe it, but it's bigger than the individual.

[mypaddock]

6. A teacher on $75k a year

Wow, I'd like to meet this teacher. Must be in the private system. Or WA perhaps.

To those like Squawk who love getting stuck into teachers at any given opportunity, who like to compare 'our holidays' with 'their holidays', teachers having it easy according to other more noble professions, my job hasn't had a pay rise so why should you lazy layabouts blah blah etc etc (just keep wheeling out the cliches...) ... please remember what this dispute is really about.

SA teachers are the worst paid in the country, by a long shot. Whether or not the cost of living here is less is irrelevant - the fact is it's becoming increasingly difficult to attract the better, brighter candidates (and push out the tired baby boomers but that's another story) as evidenced by the fact that the TER for teaching has dropped markedly in recent years.

Bottom line is (and this is the same argument given by the recently successful and publicly supported doctors' dispute) if our base line salary in SA is not competitive, we run the risk of having a poorer education system. Surely any parent capable of rational though sees that and wants the very best for their kids. It's not rocket science, and I know some won't believe it, but it's bigger than the individual.

Are teachers subject to annual performance reviews like many other professions?

[Wedgie]

This is an absolute farce now. I had to go through hell to get a day off and in the end I didn't need it off, mind you Im still staying home and doing something with the kids.
My kids have contacted their friends and most of them still aren't going so in the end it looks like the teachers have scored themselves a fully paid bludge day where' they'll be lucky to have half a class to look after.
They had my sympathy at the start but compared to the payrises Im likely to get and have got in the past they're looking very greedy and have lost me and many others.
I hope they do have a rally somewhere today, I'll go and invade it telling the bastards to get back to work!

[Booney]

Little Boon's aren't going either. I think the fact they ( the teachers ) will have had nothing scheduled for thier classes today adn that perhaps half or there abouts of each class will arrive will make for an absolute farce at most schools today.

Junior Boon joked if he went in today he might have got to watch all 3 Shrek's in one day!

I understand as a collective the teachers and teachers union are now in too deep to back down on thier demands and they would look as weak as the preverbial if they do so.The Government now has the upper hand and the teachers union are now in a position where the majority of the people ( parents ) who supported them and thier cause over the last few months have now more than likely changed thier mind and just want the whole thing sorted out....

Oh to sit in a staff lunch room and listen to the bitching today..

[Hondo]

SA teachers are the worst paid in the country, by a long shot. Whether or not the cost of living here is less is irrelevant - the fact is it's becoming increasingly difficult to attract the better, brighter candidates (and push out the tired baby boomers but that's another story) as evidenced by the fact that the TER for teaching has dropped markedly in recent years.

EVERY profession is lower paid here in SA - that's life.

I know for a fact that Engineers & Accountants get $20K - $30K more in WA, QLD and NSW. Why not just move there? Well, in those states you have to pay up to 100% more to buy an equivalent house in an equivalent location (distance from city). If teachers want to be paid like they are in other states .... then move there and leave us alone.

Secondly, EVERY profession in EVERY state is finding it hard to find better candidates. There's a skills shortage everywhere.

The Union has got themselves and their members into a riled up, fantasy land and they have made promises to the members that can't deliver. To quote Top Gun ... "they are writing cheques they can't cash". The irony is that it's taken so long that now they are negotiating when the world is on the verge of recession and the Govt budget is taking a hammering. If 21% seemed like a good idea when things were booming 12 months ago, now they've been caught with their pants down.

Most people I speak to are completely over the word "teachers". I think it's time we picketed the office of the Union!